We hope that this message finds you, our community, in good health and in safe places during this unprecedented time of Covid-19. We are happy to report that we remain safe and healthy, and will continue to operate in the midst of this pandemic. We have been working diligently with our staff, Board of Directors, and partners to:

Maintain staff, partner, supporter, and community safety;

Meet KBO and partner conservation science priorities; and

Remain innovative and adaptive in our science-driven approach to bird and habitat conservation.

Safety is at the heart of our operations, and the safety of our crew members, staff, partners, local community, and the rural communities where we work drives our decision making. With safety in mind, and in support of the larger scientific community and science-based recommendations for “flattening the curve,” we have made the very hard decision to cancel the vast majority of KBO’s field studies in 2020.

Our field work requires travel; field crew members come to us from around the U.S. and beyond, and normal field operations require that crews travel throughout Oregon and northern California. Continuing the field season would be at odds with current “Stay at Home” guidelines that are in place in Oregon and California (and many other regions). In addition, it is our responsibility to avoid endangering rural communities where we conduct our field work. Specifically, to not increase use of limited resources in small communities (such as gas stations and general stores), risk transporting the virus to areas where it is not yet prevalent, or risk needing to call on limited emergency services to assist us if an injury or other emergency were to occur.

Based on the current scientific projections for the pandemic and the needs of all citizens, we do not anticipate returning to “business as usual” this month. This limits the time available to ensure our field crews are well trained and well prepared to keep birds and themselves safe, and to do the excellent field biology that makes KBO stand out. While disappointing, we are confident that scaling back our field projects is the right decision. We look forward to returning to our ongoing field studies in spring of 2021, invigorated and eager to complete a productive season.

Field work comprises a large part of our spring and summer operations at KBO; however, our full time staff is taking advantage of this time out of the field to drive conservation planning and action by coordinating long-term monitoring, theoretical research, and applied ecology. Our current projects include:

Maintaining core field studies that are both time dependent and possible to implement while following state recommendations for social distancing and limiting travel,

Publishing results from our science,

Revising conservation plans to keep them up to date and usable by partners,

We sincerely appreciate, and still need your support! You, our KBO community, have been on our mind. As we have been focused on ensuring KBO’s sustainability in this uncertain time, we have also been thinking about and working on new and innovative strategies for staying connected with and inspiring our audience.

May 9th is World Migratory Bird Day, and this year the theme of this global celebration is “Birds Connect Our World.” Given this time of uncertainty and isolation the underlying meaning of this core message seems incredibly profound. We are therefore actively planning creative new ways to connect us all through our love of birds. We will start next Saturday with an online celebration of World Migratory Bird Day and our future in bird conservation. So please stay safe, stay healthy, and stay tuned!

Klamath Bird Observatory’s Pacific Crest Trail #1 (PCT1) long-term bird monitoring station, operated in partnership with Klamath National Forest, turns 25 this May—older than some of this year’s volunteer interns! The station’s resilience was recognized in the latest MAPS Chat—the annual newsletter of the Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship Program to which we contribute data collected at all of our monitoring stations.

The station is located within Klamath National Forest at the confluence of Seiad Creek and the Klamath River (in northern California near the town of Seiad Valley and the Pacific Crest Trail). It was first established by John Alexander (KBO Executive Director) who was a Biological Technician on the Klamath National Forest at that time. Sam Cuenca (Klamath National Forest District Biologist) was there from the start and maintains operation for the station to this day. The Institute for Bird Populations created the continental-wide Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship Program in 1989 and currently has over 300 contributing banding stations.

Klamath Bird Observatory’s collaborative conservation planning approach is fueled with results from partner-driven science programs. These science programs use birds as indicators of the healthy and resilient ecosystems on which we all depend. The science involves three coordinated aspects:

Long-term monitoring that provides information about broad-scaled changes in the condition of our world;

More in-depth theoretical research about how natural and human influences affect our land, air, and water; and

We bring results from our integrated science program to bear through an education and science delivery approach involving partner-driven engagement in conservation planning. With science, we are informing critical decisions being made today that will have lasting influences into the future.

We developed our model locally in the ruggedly beautiful and wildlife-rich Klamath-Siskiyou Bioregion of northern California and southern Oregon where we maintain intensive science and conservation planning efforts.

We now provide scientific resources and decision support across the Pacific Northwest region through the Avian Knowledge Northwest node of the Avian Knowledge Network.

Our intensive professional education and international capacity building programs expand our influence into Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean where we actively support partners who are applying our model through a network of locally driven programs aimed at protecting birds throughout their breeding, migration, and wintering ranges.

Our work to advance oak woodland conservation provides a classic example of this model in action. Our science provides:

A clear sign that oak woodland bird populations are in decline;

Information about their habitat needs and the possible influence of climate change on their health and distribution; and

Results that tell us what kind of management actions benefit these species.

Armed with this information we identify conservation priorities and projects to benefit oak related species in Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Central America. We offer specific guidance for broad-scaled restoration of oak habitats in the Pacific Northwest. In northern California and southern Oregon we are partnering to design, fund, and evaluate specific restoration projects on public and private lands, ensuring on-the-ground benefits to birds. Our leadership in the Klamath-Siskiyou Oak Network (KSON) cultivates partnerships that have resulted in over $6 million for on-the-ground restoration that is driven by our conservation planning approach. KSON oak conservation programs have been highlighted in the last two national State of the Birds reports and received the U.S. Department of Interior Partners in Conservation Award.

The Klamath Bird Observatory‘s Board President Harry Fuller was recently honored for his career in television, which spanned nearly forty years in the San Francisco Bay area. A group of dear friends who are part of Harry’s media cohort started the Harry Fuller Fund; currently over $2500 has been donated in honor of Harry to help support KBO’s internship programs! This incredible gift is a reflection of Harry’s dedication to KBO over the years as well as his passion for bird watching.

The Klamath Bird Observatory’s foundation is rooted in the study of Natural History and the art of Field Biology. As an Observatory we are an institution that supports observation based science. We prescribe intentioned observation to meticulously document our human experiences in the natural world. Using explicit protocols and well-designed studies we document these experiences, collecting scientific information that we use to inform and improve the way our society manages the ecosystems on which all of Earth’s life depends.

Of course, as a Bird Observatory, birds are the focus of our science. Birds are our focus because the study of birds serves as a cost effective tool for learning about the health of our lands, air, and water. Birds are indicators, and each different species serves as a measuring stick, its abundance and behavior providing invaluable information about specific aspects of our environment. They tell us about the condition and function of our forests; they help to guage the health of the important riparian habitats that grow along and protect our rivers and streams. For example, the presence of various birds tells us many things about a forest—Pileated Woodpeckers and Brown Creepers indicate a healthy mix of standing large trees, both alive and dead, while the occurrence of Pacific-slope Flycatchers, Wilson’s Warblers, and Orange-crowned Warblers indicates a multi-story mix of conifers and hardwoods and a complex of forest floor vegetation. Along our rivers and streams nesting success of certain species serves as an indicator of the health of the riparian habitats that shade and cool the water, stabilize the banks, maintain the water table, and serve as a buffer during flooding. Successfully nesting Song Sparrows indicate early development of healthy riparian habitats, and then, as that habitat matures we expect to see a broader suite of nesting riparian species, such as Yellow Warblers and Yellow-breasted Chats.

Ornithologists, and their scientific study of birds, have lead and formed the foundation for 20th and 21st century conservation. Near the turn of the 20th Century professional and amateur ornithologists, through their affiliation with the American Ornithological Union, shed light on the alarming patterns of population decline and environmental degradation that their science was documenting, influencing Theodore Roosevelt’s ambitious conservation agenda, which included the creation of the United States’ Wildlife Refuge System. Through sound science, the waterfowl community created one of the world’s most successful conservation programs—the North American Waterfowl Conservation Plan. This plan guides protection and management of wetland habitats throughout the ranges of the migratory ducks that depend on these habitats during their entire life cycles. And now more recently, the North American Bird Conservation Initiative, through the State of the Birds reports, is bringing to the attention of our top decision makers the fact that birds serve as the bellwethers of our own well-being. Our environmental, economic, and social well-being is inseparably tied to the fate of our birds and we have the science and tools that we need to reverse declines of at risk species while keeping our common birds common—we simply need to make the investment.

With many conservation challenges yet to be overcome, Klamath Bird Observatory is striving to keep our tradition of Natural History and Field Biology alive and well, by ensuring its practice informs effective conservation and helps us to realize tangible benefits for birds and people.

In 2000, Klamath Bird Observatory incorporated, emerging from nearly 10 years of coordinated inventory and monitoring efforts in the Klamath-Siskiyou Bioregion of southern Oregon and northern California. In that same year President Clinton issued a proclamation that established the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, protecting 52,000 acres referred to as “an ecological wonder” and “a biological crossroads—the interface of the Cascade, Klamath, and Siskiyou ecoregions, in an area of unique geology, biology, climate, and topography.” These lands are representative of the biodiversity for which the larger area we had been studying is widely recognized. The proclamation called for management in the Monument that ensures continued ecological integrity for the area. It was this ecological integrity that our research, using birds as indicators, was designed to measure. In fact, we had collected a lot of data in the area of the Monument documenting the biodiversity of birds, a group of animals identified in the proclamation as one of the many “objects of biological interest” to be protected in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.
In 2000, Klamath Bird Observatory’s non-advocacy, science-based model was new to the region and we were well-positioned to facilitate what was escalating into a controversial issue. The Presidential Proclamation called for a livestock grazing impacts study, stating that, “should grazing be found incompatible with protecting the objects of biological interest, the Secretary [of Interior] shall retire the grazing allotments [within the Monument].” This resulted in a tense atmosphere among stakeholders including the ranchers who had grazed livestock in the area for decades, an environmental community focused on reducing the negative impacts of grazing, and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), a government agency typically charged with multiple-use natural resource management but now tasked with coordinating a complicated scientific study and protecting an area for conservation purposes.

Soon after the proclamation was issued, Klamath Bird Observatory began working with all the stakeholders to design and implement a grazing effects study in the Monument. We were faced with both social and scientific challenges that put our new non-advocacy, science-based model to the test. At first, the environmental community voiced concerns about KBO working with the BLM on the study, showing their distrust of the agency. Expressing similar skepticism, many of the ranchers were concerned that we were working with the non-government environmental community on aspects of the study. All parties were concerned that individual partners or funding sources would introduce bias into our results. In addition to these social issues, designing a grazing impacts study in the Monument represented a significant scientific challenge because the majority of the area had been grazed for many decades, leaving us with no ungrazed habitats to use as “controls” against which grazing effects could be compared.

We quickly realized that our non-advocacy, science-based model could be used to turn these challenges into opportunities for success. The study design would require cooperation from all stakeholders; we would need to conduct extensive vegetation surveys to document a subtle gradient representing less grazed to more heavily grazed sites. We took on a leading role in this aspect of the study, viewing its design and implementation as essential to effectively measuring the effects of grazing on the Monument’s objects of biological interest. We also viewed collaboration on the study design as a way to unify both the agency and NGO partners involved in the broader grazing effects study.

Within this context we helped to facilitate a process whereby a team of agency, academic, and NGO scientists collaborated on a transparent set of study designs that were presented for scientific review as well as review by a Resource Advisory Committee representing the diverse stakeholder interests. At a Resource Advisory Committee meeting it was agreed that this peer-reviewed and transparent study, and the peer-reviewed results, would produce an agreed upon body of science that would support the upcoming decisions on grazing that had been called for in the Presidential Proclamation. This elevated the science above the social controversy and distrust, in recognition of the integrity of the scientific process. The stage was set for a management decision to be informed by one of the most comprehensive grazing effects studies ever conducted in the western United States.

Many of the study results did indicate that maintaining the current grazing rate and conserving the ecological integrity required by the Monument’s objects of biological interest would prove to be a challenge for the Bureau of Land Management. For example, our data suggested that reduced grazing would benefit long-distance migrant, foliage gleaning, and shrub-nesting birds in the Monument’s oak woodland habitats, meeting established bird conservation objectives.

During the time that the Monument was being created, and the study was being designed and implemented, a separate negotiation involving the government and the environmental and grazing communities was underway. These groups were seeking legislation to facilitate third-party compensation for ranchers who would donate their grazing leases in the Monument, allowing their allotments to be permanently eliminated. This financial compensation offered an alternative to the Presidential Proclamation that stated, “should grazing be found incompatible with protecting the objects of biological interest, the Secretary shall retire the grazing allotments.” However, it was not until the study results were published that a compensation price point could be agreed upon. The results made the retiring of the allotments more likely, given the Secretary’s obligation to meet the directives of the proclamation.

Our early involvement with the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument grazing study served as an excellent test of our non-advocacy, science-based model, and proved to be a true success story for Klamath Bird Observatory, for science, and for science-based bird conservation. Our non-advocacy, science-based model served as a means for building bridges among adversaries, who were eventually able to collaborate as part of a transparent and effective scientific process. Through our involvement we solidified many long-lasting partnerships with diverse collaborators including the Bureau of Land Management, Geos Institute (formally a local office of the World Wildlife Fund), Oregon State University, the US Geological Services Co-op Unit, and local landowners and ranchers. Additionally, many acres of habitat in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument are no longer grazed by livestock, a change in management that is benefitting the ecological integrity of the Monument and many of the resident and migratory birds that depend on its oak woodland habitats.

Over the past 19 years, Klamath Bird Observatory has hosted over 170 student volunteer interns from 16 countries and 23 of the US states. Our objective with each individual has been to create a safe and fun learning experience, with the hope that we impart some positive influence on their academic and professional careers. Certainly, we have enjoyed the company of some incredibly bright, energetic, and enthusiastic individuals.

Luis Morales of Mexico interned with KBO in 2012. At that time he was laying the foundation for a new bird observatory in his native San Pancho, Nayarit, located on the Pacific coast of Mexico. Luis mentored with KBO Executive Director John Alexander as part of his training. The San Pancho Bird Observatory is now a healthy and growing organization advancing bird conservation and education in western Mexico, where many of our nesting songbirds spend their winters.

Keith Larson of Washington interned with KBO in 2004 and 2005. He later completed a PhD at Lund University in Sweden studying songbird migration patterns. Keith is now a research ecologist with the Abisko Arctic Research Lab in northern Sweden, where he is examining the effects of climate change on Arctic ecosystems.

Viviana Cadeña Ruiz of Colombia interned with KBO in 2002 and 2003. She later completed her PhD at Brock University in Canada on the effects of high altitude acclimation on thermoregulation. Viviana is now an eco-physiologist. She recently commenced a three year postdoctoral research fellowship with the University of Melbourne in Australia, where she is researching the adaptive significance of color change in bearded dragon lizards.

These are just a few examples of KBO intern successes – former KBO interns making positive impacts in the world of science and conservation throughout the globe. Our hope, as always, is that their KBO experience has played some part in their accomplishments.